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TTC chair Karen Stintz is casting more doubt on prospects for the province’s shorter Scarborough subway plan after a meeting with Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Standing solidly behind city council’s position that a subway extension should go all the way from Kennedy Station to Sheppard Ave., Stintz emerged from a half-hour meeting Wednesday wondering aloud about the Liberal scheme to end the route at Scarborough Town Centre.

Transportation Minister Glen Murray floated the plan last week, promising $1.4 billion in funding and challenging the city and federal government to put up more cash if they want a longer route.

“Minister Murray has put forward another solution, idea, that he believes can be built without council,” Stintz said as reporters followed her out of the legislature.

“So right now, it’s unclear to me how we move this forward if it’s deemed technically unfeasible … Minister Murray has a different proposal and the province is going to decide how to spend their money.”

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Asked if there could be a compromise between the city council and government positions on a route, Stintz replied: “That’s a question for the premier.”

Stintz called the plan “not a subway” because it would run on elevated lines from Kennedy to a stop at Lawrence and on to the town centre, where the Scarborough rapid transit line now stops.

“There’s financial holes, because the minister hasn’t included a number of key things in the plan, like cars and power and signal systems, so we know it’s not a fully funded plan. And we also don’t know if it’s technically feasible.”

At a Toronto International Film Festival event, Mayor Rob Ford said he also prefers the council route, a point stressed by Stintz in a subsequent media scrum at city hall.

“Given the technical issues and the fact there’s been components that are missing from the funding, and the fact Mayor Ford is behind the council-endorsed motion to bring transit up to Sheppard, that’s the plan I believe that we should be advancing,” she said.

The higher-cost, council-preferred route to Sheppard would need federal funding as well, Stintz said, adding she hopes Ottawa clarifies by month’s end whether it will support the plan.

Ford balked at word from the provincial transit agency, Metrolinx, that the city would be on the hook for any cost overruns, saying that’s “not what Glen Murray said, right?”

“But if they want to pay for it all and give us the alternative, I’ll look at it,” Ford added. “There’s issues with both routes from the engineers. I’m very flexible on both routes but we should stick to what council approved in the first place and take it from there.”

Earlier in the day, Stintz got help from the Progressive Conservatives.

Newly minted MPP Doug Holyday (Etobicoke-Lakeshore) introduced a motion demanding the Liberals stick with the city’s original request for connecting the line to the Sheppard subway, rather than ending it at Scarborough Town Centre.

“We want to make sure that they build that subway as promised all the way to Sheppard,” Tory Leader Tim Hudak told reporters.

Holyday said the province has reduced its commitment to the Scarborough line from $1.8 billion (originally promised to fund an LRT) to $1.4 billion, and dropped a couple of stops from the different route council voted for in lieu of an LRT.

“We need a motion here to let them know that the people of Scarborough don’t live on another planet. They deserve to be treated the same as everyone else,” he said.

The former deputy mayor stayed avoided blaming the federal Conservative government, which so far has failed to commit any money towards the multi-billion-dollar project.

During question period, Murray countered that neither the city nor Ottawa have offered to help out financially and vowed to go ahead with the shorter Scarborough line.

“He’s (Holyday) doing exactly what Conservative politicians in this House, conservative politicians at city hall and Conservative politicians in Ottawa do with subways in Toronto. They pass motions; they never write cheques. Here we have classic civic-provincial-federal conservatism on subways — yet another motion,” Murray said.

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